A harvest of 500 pounds of “moi” (Pacific Threatfin) fish in Majuro Wednesday morning highlighted the progress this fish farming business is making to become commercially viable.
“This batch is just the beginning,” said Rongelap Mayor James Matayoshi, who has spearheaded the fish farming from pilot project to commercial rollout over the past five years. Going forward, he anticipates increasingly bigger harvests of fish from lagoon cages every other month. The goal is a 50,000-pound harvest at the end of 2016, he said. That will generate gross revenue of over $200,000, Matayoshi said. The fish farm at Dridej Island is run by Atoll Technologies of the Marshall Islands.
Most of this small harvest is being sold locally, here and in Ebeye. Over recent months of small harvests, some moi has been air freighted to Honolulu and sold at Times Supermarket, and samples are going to promote it. “Once we get USDA certificate, we’ll see moi sold at Sam’s Club, Daiei, Times and elsewhere,” he said.
Matayoshi praised the US government, US Ambassador Tom Armbruster, and MIMRA for support enabling expansion of fish farming.
Read more about this in the April 15, 2016 edition of the Marshall Islands Journal.